Why does emptiness bring in division? It is because on the one hand you are empty and on the other hand you will not give up.
You are taking care of a church, and the church has become empty, and you have become empty. The reason the church has become empty is because you have taken the lead to be empty. Yet you won’t give up. You still want to keep the church and keep things as they are. This desire to keep the church and to keep things as they are offers a chance for the ambitious ones to step in. In every age, in every stage, there have been ambitious ones. On the one hand the churches have become empty, and on the other hand they would not let go of what was in their hand; this situation has opened the door for the ambitious ones to step in.
The gifted ones at first are not that ambitious. But, because of your ability, you have accomplished something, and what you have done tempts you to be ambitious. If you had not succeeded in anything you did, you would not have thought about becoming great. Your successful work becomes a temptation. Then you will go on to do more, and the more successful you are the more you will be tempted by ambition. Then a division will come out. If all the churches are full of Christ, full of life, full of spirit, full of truth with light, I tell you there will be no opening for any ambitious ones to do anything.
There is a history of this. If the Christians in England two centuries ago had not been empty, I don’t think John Wesley would have had that much opportunity to become great. A revivalist is raised up because of the lukewarmness of God’s people. Their indifference offers an opportunity to the outstanding ones to take some action. Such action issues in division.
Along with this point, we must be aware that the more you are full, the broader your heart and mind are. The more you become empty or poor, the more narrow you are in your heart, in your concept. You will be exclusive, especially in your locality. Then you will take the position of assuming more authority. You will say, “We are the elders. We don’t agree with this brother, or with that thing. We don’t agree with that brother doing what he is doing.” Thus, you are not open to all the saints.
Such an attitude, you must know, will shut out much of the Lord’s riches. When you are rich, full, you become greathearted; you are open to take others in. Some of the elders—forgive me for saying this—are to my observation very narrow. You are open only to yourself. You do not give others a chance. You care only for your own concepts, your own ways, your own doings. On the one hand, you may be excluding some saints who are there from participating; on the other hand, you may be shutting the door for more to come in. Do you know what the result will be? You will be dried up.
Of course, to embrace everyone blindly is foolish. But to take this as an excuse in order to carry out your narrow kind of practice will dry up and even kill the church life. There is such a danger.
From our experience and observation we feel this danger arises when the elders are in one locality too long. I hope I have the proper utterance to express myself rightly and not to damage you. For an elder to be in one locality for too long a time raises this danger. You will become indifferent. You will become narrow. You will not embrace others. If you are zealous, you will not be like this. It is only when you become indifferent, lukewarm, and therefore poor, that you become narrow. You are not rich, yet you still want to keep your position; you want to keep things in the church just as they are. In order to do this, you become exclusive.
The result is that the water will not flow to your place. The water means the blessing. The blessing will take another way. To have the blessing, you must be humble. Your elevation must be leveled. Why doesn’t the blessing come? Why doesn’t the water flow? It is because your place is too elevated. You have to lower yourself. You must cut down the elevation.
In the Old Testament a high place is a negative term. The high places were where idols were worshipped. Lukewarmness and indifference create the high place. You become dry. Even if the water would like to re-enrich you, it cannot stay. You have no reservoir to preserve even the rain water; there is no need to say that the river cannot flow up to your high place. All these troubles are of one source: the loss of zeal.
To my observation, some of the churches have become narrow already. The eldership cannot embrace in an inclusive way. You may say, “I don’t control things.” But I don’t mean that you control things. To control is one thing; to be narrow is another. Simply not to control is not sufficient. You need to include others. But a poor man cannot embrace others. To do so, you must be rich in Christ. You must be full of grace. It is not easy for the eldership not to control. It is even harder for the eldership not to be narrow. These are cause and effect, and cause and effect create a cycle. This is a serious danger.
The high places not only represent indifference. Every high place is a division. The people were all to go to Jerusalem, the center of oneness. The high places were divisions with idolatry. Don’t think this is just the Old Testament history. It is also the New Testament story. Among Christians, the story is the same. The earth is full of high places. These places are dried up, full of narrowness because they are poor.
Zeal will kill the source of the indifference. Thus, regardless of how long you have been an elder in a local church, as long as you are zealous, there is no danger. When your zeal is gone, the danger is present.